The sunsets lately have been really magnificent; the poplars and chenars, darkly olive, reflected in the flooded fields against a red gold sky, in the foreground the black silhouettes of the armada.

The days are almost too hot, but the nights are cool and delicious, and the mosquitoes are only noticeable for a brief period of sinful activity about sundown, after which the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.

At half-past ten this morning we set sail; that is to say, we hired nine extra coolies and a second shikara to tow, and advanced on Srinagar.  Hesketh’s boat, being the lighter, kept well ahead (here let me note that “bow” in that boat is quite the prettiest girl we have seen in Kashmir, and the minx knows it!), but we had good men, and worked along slowly and steadily up the main river, the side canals being all choked by broken bridges and such like.  We crept past the Amira Kadal, or first bridge, about two o’clock, and tied up for lunch, revelling in the most perfect pears, peaches, and walnuts.  As a rule the Kashmir fruit is disappointing; abundant and cheap certainly, but not by any means of first-rate quality.

Strawberries, cherries, apricots, melons, and grapes might all be far better if properly cultivated, and scientifically improved from European stock.

The pears alone defy criticism, and the apples, I am told, are excellent also.

Vegetables are in great plenty, but, like the fruit, would be much improved by good cultivation.

Wednesday, September 25.—­The abomination of desolation wrought by the flood is borne in upon one more and more as an inspection of the town reveals the damage done more fully—­the houses standing empty, their lower storeys dank and slimy, the ruined gardens, and muddy, slippery roads.  The wrecked garden of the Punjab Bank is one of the saddest sights, and must be a painful spectacle to Mr. Harrison, whose joy it was to spend time and money on importing exotic and improving indigenous plants.

One cannot help reflecting how desperately depressed Noah, and the probably more impressionable Mrs. Noah, must have been when, discarding their aquascutums for the first time, they sallied forth, a primeval party, to observe the emerging country.

Mrs. Noah, tucking up the curious straight garment that is a memory of our childhood, went ahead with feminine curiosity; Noah, bare-legged, slithering along in the rear and beseeching the ladies to note the slipperiness of the alluvial deposit, and for goodness’ sake not to make a glissade down the side of Ararat.

I feel confident they must have taken great precautions, for Sabz Ali slipped up on the shelving bank of the Jhelum, and, had he not caught the gunwale of our dounga in his descent, would most certainly have had to swim for his life—­which I doubt if he can do!

Now, Shem and Co. were as valuable to Noah as Sabz Ali is to us, and I should not be surprised if he made them travel on all-fours in the risky places.  Fathers were very dictatorial in those days, and there was nobody about to make them consider their dignity.